Tolkein would not have known whether to be offended most as philologist, as patriot or as Roman Catholic

[Spenser’s] first poem, The Shepheardes Calendar of 1579, was ornamented by the most offensive gloss that Tolkein probably ever encountered. In quick succession this declared that for all its age ‘that rancke opinion of Elfes’ [sic] should be rooted ‘oute of mens hearts’ as being a mistaken form of the Italian faction the ‘Guelfes’, and was in any case a Papistical notion spread by ‘bald Friers and knauish shauelings.’ Tolkein would not have known whether to be offended most as philologist, as patriot or as Roman Catholic.

 T. Shippey, The road to Middle-Earth (3rd edition. 2005), 64